[SPOILER ALERT: This story contains plot points from the latest episode of Silicon Valley, which aired last night.]
You can stop laughing, cringing, and screaming, “No!!! Don’t turn around!!!” now.
Sunday night’s episode of Silicon Valley, “Homicide,” featured one of the HBO comedy’s best moments of the season, as Dinesh (Kumail Nanjiani) and Gilfoyle (Martin Starr) craftily contorted a SWOT matrix—a corporate method of determining the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a decision—into something amazingly disturbed and absurd.
After trying to alert Homicide stuntman/horrible person Blaine (Dustin Milligan) to a fatally flawed math error in his calculations for his building-jumping feat, only to be rudely brushed off, our Pied Piper programmers dedicated their time to evaluating—in great detail—the pros and cons of keeping their mouths shut and letting Blaine meet his fiery death. Factoring into their analysis: Dinesh’s lust for Homicide event manager Gina (Porter Lynn), Blaine’s girlfriend. (Sample strength: “Blaine’s last moment is realizing face is gone.” Sample opportunity: “Grief threesome with Gina and Blaine’s hot mom?”)
The biting scene elevated to watch-through-your-fingers level when Blaine entered the room—in which the boys had constructed a “Let Blaine Die” SWOT board on the wall—and started to genuinely apologize for his awful behavior, while Dinesh and Gilfoyle were nervously praying that he wouldn’t turn around and see their evil work directly behind him. But turn he did, cranking the knob of awkwardness all the way up until it broke off.
“We just liked the idea of applying this cold, clinical business decision making process to something that is completely absurd, like whether you should let a guy die or not,” says executive producer Alec Berg of the SWOT plot, noting its common usage in the business world. The show’s writers—led by co-executive producers Dan O’Keefe and Clay Tarver—were tasked with coming up with a pile of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, some of which are called out in the dialogue and many others of which can be spotted on the wall. “We were kicking that around a lot,” says executive producer Mike Judge. “We had the ones that were in the script, but we wanted to fill all the index cards. There’s a bunch of funny ones that you probably never see.”
Let’s fix that problem right now. The Silicon Valley producers shared with EW all 46 entries on the SWOT matrix (some of which are NSFW). In case you didn’t quite catch the grid in all of its wicked glory, we present the complete list of every strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat involved in the decision whether or not to allow an a-hole of a stuntman to go down in flames. Long live Blaine—or at least the Let Die Blaine board.
STRENGTHS
UGLY CAN CAR BLOOD SOAKED AND TOTALLED
BLAINE IS DEAD
BLAINE IS NO LONGER ALIVE
SAVES ASSHOLES FROM MAKING MISTAKES IN MATH
DEATH CAPTURED IN HIGH-RESOLUTION SLOW MOTION; HOLDS UP ON REPEATED VIEWINGS
ONE LESS GUY NAMED BLAINE
WEB TRAFFIC GOES VIRAL
BLAINE’S LAST MOMENT IS REALIZING HIS FACE IS GONE
AS A GIANT DOUCHE, BLAINE TORMENTED ETERNALLY IN HELL
A DEAD BLAINE IS A BLAINE THAT CAN’T REPRODUCE
BLAINE SHITS PANTS FROM FEAR, PANTS DISCOVERED UPON DEATH
SENSE OF ACCOMPLISHMENT
IMPRESS HOT SATANIST CHICKS BY BOASTING ABOUT BLAINE’S DEATH (GILFOYLE ONLY)
AFTER HITTING BUILDING, FLAT BILL OF CAP MIGHT ACTUALLY BEND
WEAKNESSES
BLAINE DIES SUPER FAST
GINA MARRIES BLAINE IN HOSPITAL OUT OF GRIEF
GINA KILLS SELF OUT OF GRIEF
GINA ENTERS CONVENT OUT OF GRIEF
UNFORTUNATE WINDOW WASHERS MUST CLEAN BLOOD OFF BUILDING
BLAINE’S BLOOD HAS AIDS AND GETS ON KIDS
BLAINE DIES SLOW BUT WE CAN’T SEE IT BECAUSE ONLY FAMILY ALLOWED IN HOSPITAL
BUILDING IS STRUCTURALLY DAMAGED
BLAINE’S FUNERAL TELEVISED; PREEMPTS “STAR TREK: TNG” MARATHON
PEOPLE WEAR T-SHIRTS WITH BLAINE’S FACE ON THEM
OPPORTUNITIES
GINA NEEDS CONSOLING
F— GINA?
BIRDS GET TO EAT PIECES OF BLAINE
CARBON FOOTPRINT REDUCED BY ONE BLAINE
GRIEF THREESOME WITH GINA & BLAINE’S HOT MOM?
BLAINE’S ORGANS HARVESTED FOR HOT GIRLS WITH CANCER WHO THEN GRATITUDE-F— US
DEFECATING ON BLAINE’S GRAVE
DIGGING UP BLAINE’S GRAVE, DISHONORING REMAINS AGAIN
DEATH LEADS TO REGULATIONS ON STUNT INDUSTRY – LIVES SAVED
DISHONORING BLAINE’S REMAINS BY PUTTING FUNNY HAT ON BODY, DRAGGING IT BEHIND CAR
URINATING ON BLAINE’S GRAVE
TAKE HIS WALLET AND SHOES IF NOT TOO BLOODY
MASTURBATING ON BLAINE’S GRAVE
EJACULATION
THREATS
AFTER THIS, NOTHING IS EVER AS MUCH FUN AGAIN
VENGEFUL BLAINE SUPPORTERS ACCUSE US OF CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE
OVER TIME GINA BECOMES MORE CLINGY AND LESS HOT
PEOPLE FIND OUT AND IN YOUTUBE DEATH VIDEO, WE GET FLAMED IN THE COMMENTS SECTION
GUILT (DINESH ONLY)
WE CAN ONLY WATCH HIM DIE ONCE
INVESTIGATION AND TRIAL SETS BACK PIED PIPER BUILD
PHILZ COFFEE CLOSES FOR A DAY TO HONOR BLAINE’S MEMORY
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